Friday, January 08, 2016

Fun Couple Day!

He slams the vacuum cleaner against the carpet to try to shake loose whatever’s stuck up there.

“Maybe you vacuumed up some of my dreams?” his wife says over the rim of her highball glass.

He jokingly searches the inside workings of the vacuum looking for her dreams.

“Don’t see any of those in here,” he says with a chuckle.

“Check the garbage disposal. Maybe you shoved my dreams down there! I haven’t seen them in so long, maybe you ground them up in the sink blades like they were just some leftover kale leaves from last night’s forgettable dinner!”

He jokingly checks the garbage disposal to see if there are any dreams in it.

“Nope. No dreams down there!” he shouts jovially.

“Maybe you threw them out with the trash. My dreams are so old and neglected that I could see you mistaking them for garbage. Did you happen to take my dreams and stuff them into a garbage can with the stripped toilet paper rolls, the soiled q-tips, and the junk mail pleas for charitable donations that we tear up and throw away without even fucking reading?!”

He jokingly goes down to the sidewalk to untie the garbage bags and root through the trash searching for her dreams.

“Can’t find any dreams in these Hefty cinch sacks!” he shouts up at their window.

She opens the window and shouts back at him, “Have you checked the grille and tires of our car? Take a flashlight and inspect the grille and tires for the blood of my dreams! You might have accidentally run down my dreams some night when you weren’t paying any goddamn attention to them. So you obliterated them against the grille of the car, then dragged them under the tires. Then to be sure they were dead you might have shifted into reverse and backed over my dreams until the life bled out of them into the street. Then you might have peeled away without even bothering to get out of the car to try and help.”

He jokingly goes upstairs to grab a flashlight, and then jokingly heads out to the car to inspect the grille and tires. There’s blood everywhere.

Back in the apartment, “My God, you drove home? I begged you never to drive when you’re like this.”

“He came out of nowhere. I thought I could live with the guilt but I can’t.”

When she finishes her drink, he takes her to the police station so she can turn herself in for the hit and run.

“Honey,” she barks at him. “Check the other jail cells for my dreams! See if they’ve been locked up in here for life without the possibility of parole.”

He asks the police if he can jokingly check the jail cells for his wife’s dreams, but the police remind him that a man is dead. This is no time for jokes.